"In short, it allows Wine applications to be run just as easily as those native to Linux, meaning that they can be linked to or run from any directory, whether from a terminal or even a file manager like nautilus. It also handles some of the more awkward Wine extensions like .lnk and .msi, allowing them to be run with a double click."

While newly minted Windows head Steven Sinofsky continues to play his cards close to his chest, we're seeing signs that Microsoft is rethinking its monolithic approach to not only the mass-market Windows operating system but the entire family of Windows products from servers down to CE-based embedded devices. First up is a streamlined microkernel codenamed MinWin, around which a re-engineered Windows line will be built. Described as 'the Windows 7 source-code base', in reference to the successor to Windows Vista which is slated for a 2010 release, MinWin strips back the current NT-based kernel to the barest of bare metal. Ars Technica has more, including a one hour video presentation about MinWin. Sassy quote of the day by Microsoft kernel engineer Eric Traut: "A lot of people think of Windows as this really large bloated operating system, and that may be a fair characterisation, I have to admit." My take: Maybe this will be closer to reality after all?

AmigaOS 4.0 for classic Amigas will go on sale November 30th (yes, this year). From the AmigaWorld.net news page: "On November 30 AmigaOS4 will ship for Classic Amigas. Hyperion Entertainment VOF made the announcement at the AmiWest banquet. The following will be included in the package: CD-ROM with AmigaOS4, one floppy disk to boot your Amiga (no pre-installed OS will be needed), and a manual."

GNU Classpath 0.96 "Staying Alive!" and IcedTea 1.4 just got released. GNU Classpath is slowly turning into a bootstrapping platform for IcedTea/OpenJDK by providing the necessary free software plugs that are missing from Sun's OpenJDK to provide various GNU/Linux distributions with the fully free GPLed IcedTea Java platform implementation that will be in the Fedora (Werewolf), Debian, and Ubuntu (Gutsy) releases.

"Should Security Enhanced Linux be designated as the sole security framework for Linux? While most security specialists would agree on the high quality of SELinux, proponents are arguing this framework is the only one that should be needed for the open-source operating system kernel. In fact, it would eliminate the need for the Linux Security Module, an open platform for outsider developers to build their own security frameworks for Linux. And this idea has raised the ire of Linux keeper Linus Torvalds."

Apple posted a Leopard guided tour video, in the same format as the earlier iPhone and iPod Touch guided tours. It mentions the new Finder, stacks, Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, and so on. In Quicktime, of course.

"This week's release of Ubuntu 7.10 is a significant win for the free software community. Not only does this release incorporate an updated package set - most notably with the Linux 2.6.22 kernel and GNOME 2.20, but it also delivers on new desktop innovations from BulletProofX and displayconfig-gtk to Compiz Fusion being enabled by default on supported systems. However, for those business professionals and gamers that remain dependent on some Windows-only binary applications, the WINE project has been making some excellent headway into supporting Windows applications on the Linux desktop. With Ubuntu 7.10 and WINE 0.9.46 in hand, we had set out to compare the performance between Windows XP and Gutsy Gibbon with WINE on two popular DirectX benchmarks."

xmonad 0.4 has been released. "xmonad is a tiling window manager for X. Windows are arranged automatically to tile the screen without gaps or overlap, maximising screen use. Window manager features are accessible from the keyboard: a mouse is optional. xmonad is written, configured and extensible in Haskell. Custom layout algorithms, key bindings and other extensions may be written by the user in Haskell, in config files. Window layouts are applied dynamically, and different layouts may be used on each workspace. Xinerama is fully supported, allowing windows to be tiled across several physical screens."

"10 Years ago - on October 3rd 1997 - the pkgsrc software management system was created by Alistair Crooks and Hubert Feyrer. pkgsrc, the NetBSD Packages Collection, was intended primarily as a packaging system for NetBSD. Derived from the FreeBSD Ports system, pkgsrc became a success story. Today, pkgsrc is a cross-platform framework, running on the BSDs, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, many Unix derivatives, and even on QNX and Windows. Ports- and pkgsrc-like software build frameworks are today standard on the BSDs and quite popular on some newer Linux distributions. In 2005 pkgsrc was adopted as the package management system for DragonFly BSD. Presently, pkgsrc provides more than 7300 stable packages. We continue the anniversary celebrations with a series of interviews: developers and users of pkgsrc and of related systems give insights into the history, the concepts, the problems and the future directions of packaging systems."

"This article explains some of the more important syntactic and semantic differences between two of the most popular assemblers for Linux, GNU Assembler and Netwide Assembler, including differences in basic syntax, variables and memory access, macro handling, functions and external routines, stack handling, and techniques for easily repeating blocks of code."

Ars reviews a Dell Ubuntu laptop, and concludes: "The Dell Inspiron Notebook 1420n with Ubuntu preinstalled delivers software freedom and solid value. For serious Linux enthusiasts who are already comfortable handling the various idiosyncrasies of the platform, Dell's preloaded Ubuntu laptop is a practical and cost-effective choice that eliminates the need to perform a manual installation and provides Linux users with a means of dodging the odious Windows tax. Although I consider this product a strong buy for experienced Linux users, I don't recommend it (yet) for users who aren't already familiar with the operating system. Ubuntu's prodigious ease of use is diminished by a litany of frustrating minor hardware support problems that many average computer users will not be inclined to resolve."

"What do you get when you cross a Firefox with a chameleon? An open-source Web browser whose user interface is adapted to the look of the operating system it's running on. One change planned for the upcoming Firefox version 3, code-named Gran Paradiso, is this more native appearance."

Remember those great "home of the future" demonstrations from days past? If you're not old enough to remember them from world fairs, Disneyland, or movie newsreels, you've probably seen the cartoons parodying them: Robotic maids, self-cleaning kitchens, futuristic-looking plastic furniture, dehydrated food; everything white, round, and sparkling. Well, it's the future now, and it didn't exactly turn out the way they thought it would, but thanks to ubiquitous computer technology, today's home can have capabilities that futurists 50 years ago would never have imagined.

Ubuntu 7.10 has been released. "Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Edition adds an enhanced user interface, improved hardware support, multiple monitor support and integrated desktop search. Ubuntu 7.10 Server Edition features improved functionality, manageability, pro-active security and hardware compatibility and delivers a rapid deployment platform for developers and businesses. New versions of Kubuntu and Edubuntu, derivatives of Ubuntu aimed at KDE enthusiasts and the education community respectively, are also being released at the same time." And a review. Update: One more review.